


Try Again

by tarot_card



Series: Loki's Solution [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: CACW Fix-it, Loki (Marvel) Does What He Wants, M/M, Time Travel, damnit boys stop fighting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:01:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26232334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tarot_card/pseuds/tarot_card
Summary: Watching the disastrous results of the Avengers' "Civil War", Loki's plans to defeat Thanos appear to be in danger.Thankfully, he has a way to fix this.
Relationships: Steve Rogers & Tony Stark, pre- James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Series: Loki's Solution [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1905301
Comments: 25
Kudos: 101
Collections: WinterIronShield Bang Ultimate Collection





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sagana_Rojana_Olt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sagana_Rojana_Olt/gifts).



> Artwork by the lovely Sagan Rojana Olt, who also made an excellent cheerleader throughout. 
> 
> Even when I was mean and taunted her with the very last line of chapter three and told her that's where it ended.
> 
> Without context. =DDD
> 
> Beta by the darling [Silverstarwolfgoddess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silverstarwolfgoddess/)

* * *

Tony closed his eyes and covered his face as he saw the shield coming down, jerking when he felt it hit his chest - rather than his head or neck as he was expecting. The pain in his chest from the pressure was sharp, stealing his breath from him, and his eyes widened as the room seemed to brighten. Clearly, he wasn’t the only one that thought so; Steve reared back, pulling the shield from his chest, and they both turned their attention to the arc reactor, which was starting to spark. The light brightened, and Tony gasped as his vision went white while he heard a _disturbingly_ familiar voice.

“This won’t do. I literally broke my back to get the lot of you together, and this is what happens? Fix this before the Titan arrives, or this will all be for naught.” A pause, followed by an amused tone, “Why don’t you just give it another chance?”

A flash of green eyes in the white void and Tony gasped as he woke up. His chest was still in pain, but this was a familiar, old pain he hadn’t felt in years. He looked around the room he was in, the penthouse in the tower in New York, his hand reaching to his chest to feel the arc reactor. At the sound of Jarvis speaking to the room, he jerked, not even able to make out the words he was hearing. He was too enthralled with that voice, that tone. The Vision came from JARVIS, they sounded similar, but _god_ it just wasn’t the same. 

“J? Date and time.” He had to focus to avoid actually hyperventilating, particularly at the words, “May 5th, 2012,” from his AI. _Four years_... Maybe everything from the last four years was a hallucination?

“Sir?” Tony blinked and shook his head, trying to remember what had happened in his ‘hallucination’, the day after the Chitauri battle - sending Thor and Loki back to god-land. Then, splitting the group. For the first but, according to his hallucination, not the last time. “Doctor Banner is awake downstairs, ready to head to the park to see off both Mr Odinsons.”

_Fuck._

* * *

Steve jerked upright in his bed, staring wide-eyed around a room he hadn’t slept in in… at least a few years, if he was right. This was his apartment from... when he had just left SHIELD quarters. He’d left the quarters there to live here for a while, then Avenger’s Tower, before moving to the Compound upstate. 

He looked around the room, quickly turning off the alarm that had woken him up, and searched around for his phone to check the-

May 5th, 2012

Green eyes flashed in his mind as he recalled the words heard in the white background of his... dream? Was it a dream? Were the four years he remembered before a dream?

Oh, god. _Bucky_.

He scrambled out of bed and got dressed, jumping at the knock on his door as he was buttoning his jeans. Taking a moment, he opened the door to see Natasha on the other side with Clint and blinked, feeling something far too real to be _deja vu_. 

This was the day Thor was going to take the Tesseract back to Asgard with… With Loki. The words and eyes from his pseudo-dream flashed once more and he took a deep breath, realizing... just what had to have happened. Either, Loki had put him under some sort of spell to show... a possibility of the future perhaps? Or, what he was betting, Loki had sent him... back in time. 

Was it just him? Looking at Nat and Clint, he saw nothing that seemed to indicate that they remembered anything; though they were both spies so who knew. 

He nodded when Natasha asked if he was ready to go and walked out with them both to the car, Bruce already in the back seat, to head to the park. He needed to get this done and hunt for Bucky. If he was right, if he’d travelled back in time, then Bucky was still alive. Bucky was _alive_ , and being _tortured by Hydra_. And he couldn’t let that stand. 

* * *

Steve followed Nat and Clint to the area of Central Park they were meeting to send off Thor and Loki, feeling more confident by the moment that he was right and he’d time-travelled; they hadn’t discussed where they were sending the Asgardians off from in front of Loki so he doubted Loki would have known where to show if it had been a vision of some kind. The three of them were the first ones to arrive, followed ten minutes later by two cars; one driven by Happy and the other by - Steve mentally flinched - Tony. Thor helped Loki out of the back of the car driven by Happy, while Tony got out of the other car with the Tesseract in the briefcase. 

Steve looked at Thor and Loki; Thor didn’t appear any different from the last time, but Loki shot him a look and smirk - or what he assumed was a smirk, given he still had the gag over his mouth. Loki then shot Tony a look and-

Oh no. Tony avoided looking at Loki or him, looking on edge and suspicious. Tony was _definitely_ not like that the last time; he had been flippant and seemed to be at ease. 

Tony had definitely come back with him. Which meant that this Tony here, the one that he would have to work with, was from the future as well. Knew their fight, knew about Bucky. 

Steve felt his stomach drop to his feet as Tony finally made eye contact, looking haunted and aged - an expression that quickly turned to stone as Tony seemed to realize that Steve knew too. 

* * *

Tony didn’t want to see Steve, he could feel the panic attack approaching as he got out of the car. At least he could take some comfort in the fact that no one else knew what was going on in his head right now - that was, he supposed, the benefit to hallucinations. 

Of course, even as he thought that, he looked up and saw Steve’s face - his expression, the knowledge in his eyes. _This was not a hallucination, Steve knew._

Tony schooled his expression as he and Steve held eye contact, then took a look around at the others. The only person looking any different from last time was Loki himself - which, of course he was. This was his doing in the first place. 

He narrowed his eyes briefly at Loki, whose eyes only brightened further with amusement before the demi-god looked away in time for Thor to announce that they would be on their way. 

Loki raised an eyebrow at the both of them, then took the handle he was given by Thor, and the two gods were on their way back to Asgard. Tony took a moment to look at the empty space that they’d occupied a moment ago before turning to Bruce with a smile. 

“Ready? I’ve got lab space ready for you!” Last time he’d taken a moment to speak to Steve and shake his hand; he wasn’t feeling so inclined this time around, though he did lock eyes with the man for a moment and nod. They’d come back in time for a reason, Loki had _sent them back_ for a reason. They’d have to speak at some point to figure it out. 

Just, not now. Not yet. 


	2. Chapter 2

Tony rubbed his hands over his face roughly, blinking a few times to focus on the list on the holographic display in front of him that he and JARVIS had made two weeks ago. 

The moment he’d gotten back into the tower after seeing off Thor and Loki, he’d immediately rushed to his workshop and confessed his ‘sins’, as it were, to JARVIS. They now had a list of things to avoid, events to plan for… a to-do and to-don’t list, basically. 

  * Keep an eye on Aldrich Killian, AIM, and Maya Hansen _(Harley, oh god, he needed to find and meet that kid somehow..)_
  * Sokovia _(the revolution they were going through could probably use some humanitarian aid, maybe he could keep a couple of 15 year olds from joining HYDRA. Had they already joined? Too many variables..)_
  * Get - or keep, no idea where the thing was now - the staff _out of HYDRA’s hands_
  * Find evidence of Shieldra, give it to Fury
  * Meet Peter Parker aka Spiderman after he makes his first appearance _(..no idea how the kid got his powers, if I can stop him. He might just be a mutant..)_



Which of course, led to the last item on the list…

  * James Buchanan Barnes (plus Helmut Zemo and everything that came with him, such as the other Winter Soldiers - he wasn’t sure if they were still alive and in cryo at this point or not)



That one was the hardest for him; mentally, emotionally. Now that it had been a couple weeks, with a great deal on his plate to take his mind off of the  _ hurt _ that came with... everything, he was able to distance himself enough to recognize that Bucky Barnes was a victim in this. The man was easily the world’s longest POW and needed to be freed, needed to be safe. He needed help and Tony was determined to give him exactly that.

As much as the knowledge of what was done to his mother hurt him, his mother had been a humanitarian through and through. She would have wanted Bucky to get whatever help he could provide the man. With that in mind, he was working on BARF again in the hopes that he could use it to help the both of them. He knew he still needed to work through things, and if it weren’t for his trust issues - and the whole  _ time travel bullshit _ that was apparently his life, he could get a shrink for himself without an issue. But, the bigger problem was that there really was  _ no one _ that would be properly equipped to help a ninety-five year old in a twenty-five year old body, who’d been a prisoner of war for almost seventy years on top of that. Include the brain washing and being repeatedly flash-frozen, and this was going to be a cluster-fuck of epic proportions. 

Until they could find someone able to help Bucky properly, this was probably their best bet to get him on an even keel. And, thankfully, he’d done all this programming in the future-past.

“Sir, you have a... visitor.” Tony blinked, coming out of his own thoughts to look up at the screen to his left, showing the camera to the hall outside the workshop. 

“Where, J?”

The camera changed to one outside the building, aimed at a back entrance door that was seldom used, showing Steve standing there and running a hand through his hair for a minute, before looking up at the camera with a neutral, maybe even nervous expression.

“This is the fourth time this week he’s come here; he tends to leave after a minute or two.” Another screen showed four different Steves, each with their own time stamps throughout the week, either pacing in front of the door, or walking up to it, only to walk immediately away shaking his head. “This is the longest he’s stayed so far.”

A click indicated that JARVIS had connected the audio so he could speak to the supersoldier and he sighed. 

“What can I do for you, Captain Spangles?” He knew that, other than the nickname, his voice was... pretty cold. He’d (mostly) gotten over Bucky’s role in the murder of his parents, but Steve’s role in keeping that information from him was going to take a little longer to process. Particularly since the good Captain was such a big proponent of honesty and openness and  _ not keeping secrets _ .

He wasn’t bitter, it was fine. 

“Tony. Uh, look, you...” He watched the man look around quickly, shuffling on his feet for a moment before taking a deep breath. “You came back too, right? You, uh... It wasn’t just me, right?”

A pause, followed by a sigh, “Yeah, Cap, I came back too. Come on in, I’m in the workshop. You know the way.” He waved at JARVIS to open the door to Steve, then closed down any projects that weren’t related to the conversation he figured they were going to have. 

* * *

Steve couldn’t help feeling a little on-edge as he walked into Stark Tower - he noticed that this time, the other letters went back up. No renaming the tower for the Avengers, apparently. He couldn’t help feeling nervous, hoping that he could trust that Tony wouldn’t hunt down Bucky as he’d feared in Siberia.

After he’d come back, and with the debriefing he had to deal with from SHIELD, Steve felt the need to remind himself about the Tony that existed in 2012. Steve honestly... couldn’t remember much of the briefing he’d gotten from SHIELD about Tony; so much of their lives had intertwined and he wasn’t sure what was going on with Tony at this point in time or what he was expected to know. So, he’d done the thing that, in the first go-round, he hadn’t known to do. He’d Google’d the man. 

And, from what he had read, Tony was a polarizing person. People either loved him or hated him, there was no in-between. That being said, even those that hated him seemed to respect him. Thinking back on what Tony had said to him on the helicarrier the first time they’d met, he couldn’t help but shake his head at his past self.  _ Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist _ , was just the beginning of who Tony was. 

For a man as rich as he was, he was one of the only billionaires in the country to actually spend his wealth on the people that needed it. All of his employees got a fair wage,  _ all _ of his employees got full health care, full-time, part-time, or paid intern - he, in fact, had no  _ un _ paid interns and when he’d been asked about it in the past, he’d pointed out how much those unpaid internships benefitted only those that could afford to not work for any length of time. For those from middle- or lower-class families, there was no way they could go without paid work for months at a time. 

Thinking about Tony’s admitting that he’d come back to the past with him, he was... relieved, even though he knew that tone from Tony, he knew that Tony was still mad. Hopefully it wasn’t anger at  _ Bucky _ . Hopefully, Tony would help him rescue Bucky from Hydra, and help fix things before they... got as bad as they did. Steve pulled the piece of paper from his pocket and looked at it - he wrote a few things down that he really wanted to fix. 

He wanted to help Wanda and her brother, get them out of HYDRA’s hands, and never,  _ ever _ have Ultron come around. Get Loki’s staff away from HYDRA - he couldn’t remember how long after SHIELD took it that it fell into HYDRA’s hands, if they’d ever known how long it had taken, and how long after that Wanda and Pietro had been experimented on and given their powers. He needed to find and meet Sam - he wasn’t sure if Sam was in the VA yet, if Sam’s friend was still alive he wanted,  _ needed _ , to find a way to keep him alive somehow. He didn’t want Sam to go through that if he could help it. 

He stepped into the elevator and the door closed, though it didn’t move at first, the lights flickering briefly. He glanced up and immediately began panicking,  _ shit!  _ What if Tony still held a grudge against him for what happened in Siberia?! Steve had almost killed him there, after all. He couldn’t quite stop himself from wringing his hands together, rubbing his wrists together in a nervous habit. Was this all just a ruse to kill him?! Tony could probably do that and get away with it somehow… Tony wasn’t happy with him after all and Steve had read up what happened to Tony’s enemies, from him blowing them up sky-high behind him in Afghanistan to him viciously mocking Hammer and verbally tearing him apart in the media. But… maybe he should wait? Maybe he was just assuming the worst of him because of his fear… But what if he had misjudged Tony and he was going to take out Steve before he could save Bucky?! The speakers came to life, disrupting his thoughts. 

“Captain, I’d like to speak to you for a moment, if I may.” JARVIS’ voice came through the speakers, colder than he remembered hearing it ever before. He winced and nodded, knowing he didn’t really have a choice, given he was stuck in the damn elevator controlled by him.  _ God _ , what was the AI going to tell him? That Tony was done with him? Or maybe just that Tony wasn’t interested in helping him? But if that was the case, Steve didn’t think Tony would invite him down at all… He should try to calm down a bit and listen… Steve took a couple of careful deep breaths and closed his eyes to center himself. 

Besides, worst case scenario, he could probably bust out of here.

Maybe.

He wasn’t feeling as confident in that any more after looking him up recently, but maybe.

“Sir trusted you a great deal in the... other timeline. You betrayed that trust in word and deed when you kept the information from him that you did.” Steve winced in the brief pause that JARVIS left briefly before continuing. “If the two of you are to work towards a better future than you both saw previously, I  _ suggest _ you avoid such mistakes going forward.”  _ Okay _ , Steve thought, it didn’t  _ sound _ like Tony was going to kill him, or anything else… So, everything  _ should  _ be alright as long as he didn’t trigger him. Steve let out an internal sigh of relief, he just had to be careful, that was all. He could do that. It wouldn’t be the first time he had to watch what he was doing. 

“Yeah, I’ll… do that. I don’t think there’s anything that he doesn’t know at this point. But, yeah, I won’t keep anything from him. I just…” He sighed and shook his head a bit, “I wanted to avoid hurting him, and I didn’t want him to... hold it against Bucky. I wanted him to help me get Bucky to safety.”

There was a pause for a few seconds before the elevator started moving, “I believe you’ll find that Sir will far surpass your expectations of him, and that if you’d paid closer attention  _ before _ you may not have had the same issues between the two of you.” The voice turned wry, “Though I’ve no doubts that Sir has not helped in this matter.”

Steve blinked, genuinely surprised that Tony’s own creation would be critical of him like that, but didn’t have time to say anything else before the elevator doors opened to the outer doors of the workshop. While the glass walls were blacked out and there was no music playing, the door was open for him. It shut behind him with a soft hiss as he stepped through, taking in Tony at a workbench with holograms in front of him, equations across them that he’d never have a hope of understanding. 

“Tony.” He took a deep breath as the man turned to look at him, dark eyes... wary, but expression neutral. Thinking of JARVIS' words, he watched the genius carefully, giving him a small smile. “I gotta say, I’m glad it’s not just me that Loki sent back. I wouldn’t have the first idea what to do. But, I figured I’d make a list of a few things that... maybe we should try to fix?”

He stepped closer to Tony and, after a moment, put the piece of paper from his pocket, onto the work bench. No point in starting this conversation with any sort of antagonism; he knew full well that Tony hated being handed things. He wasn’t going to push it and try that at this point. 

Not after what happened in Siberia.

* * *

Tony grimaced a little as Steve stepped closer, but let out a small breath of relief when the paper was put on the workbench. He picked it up and looked at it briefly.

“Hey, J, pull up our list. This overlaps a bit, so we can get all of it done I’m sure.” He paused and cut a look at Steve out of the corner of his eye, “I hope you didn’t tell anyone that we…” a deep sigh, “ _ time travelled _ . God only knows what Shieldra would do with that information.”

“No, no one. I thought about... Well, Natasha and Clint. But they’d want to tell Fury, and who knows who would be listening? Until HYDRA is out of SHIELD, I figured it was better not to take that chance.”

Tony nodded and looked up at their list, “Well, some of this we can take care of easily enough. J, check if Sam Wilson is still with the Air Force or if he’s a part of the VA yet; if he’s VA, Steve, we can get you an appointment there easily enough. The government never listed you as KIA. As far as the paperwork goes, you’re still Missing In Action, and going from MIA to getting your full benefits and back pay will be easy enough. Keeping you as MIA was largely ceremonial, but as long as it was done,  _ why _ is irrelevant.”

Steve blinked, looking genuinely... shocked. “It... SHIELD said that it was a big deal, that it would take  _ months. _ Hell, it  _ did _ take months the first time! The back pay was also minimal; I was surprised by it, given how long I was frozen for, but they said it was the best they could do.”

“Well. SHIELD had a reason to want to keep you tied to them. Frankly, if you’d gotten the back pay you were due - even a percentage of it - you wouldn’t have needed my bank card to fund your search for Barnes in the first place.” Tony paused, frowning to himself, then turned to face Steve, “Maybe that was the point, though. Fury himself wouldn’t have had the pull to force the Army to get you what you were due, it would have had to go up above him. Maybe the ones that did it, kept you from getting what you were entitled to, to keep you tied to them, and unable to go off and search for him. I mean, they did it long before you knew he was alive still, but they had to realize it was a possibility given what you were getting tied up in.”

He frowned to himself for a moment before looking at the nearest camera, “J, get the name of whoever was, or I guess  _ would be _ in charge of that from SHIELD.”

Tony gestured at the holographic list that was displayed, “Is there anything else you can think of that we’ll need to take care of? I’d like to take care of the twins and the Sokovia issue before they join HYDRA, but I’m not sure when that was. They were part of HYDRA for long enough to get their powers, but that’s three years from now. I’m really hoping we can keep them from joining; as handy as their powers might be, human experimentation isn’t something I’d like to let them try at again.” Also, he... honestly wanted no part of Wanda and Pietro. Ever. But he wasn’t going to get into that with Steve; they were almost getting along. He wanted to keep it that way.


	3. Chapter 3

Steve couldn’t believe how quickly things seemed to move forward with Tony’s help. He couldn’t believe he had this much help from Tony in the first place. Truth be told, he knew full well that Tony was still... not happy with him. Tony still didn’t trust him, it was painfully obvious - the man was normally tactile and would greet people with a hand on their shoulder, he’d brush close as he walked past a person, sprawling over people on couches…. But Steve had literally not been touched by him, even by accident, in the month since they’d started working together. It was jarring and definitely brought home how much damage he’d done to his friendship with the other man. 

Tony was getting ahead on their lists, putting money into humanitarian aid for the Sokovian people, and talking to higher ups in the UN to intervene on the peoples’ behalf. Instead of presenting the idea himself, he got someone else to introduce the idea, though he publicly backed it, both vocally and financially. Surprised that Tony didn’t want to be the one out in front, he’d asked Tony about it, where he was startled by the response.

“Of course my name shouldn’t be on it. I’m the bad guy, remember? My stolen weapons have done so much damage in Sokovia... They’d never trust it coming from me. It has to be above me, has to be beyond reproach. I don’t want people to question the help because of where it came from.”

“I... never really thought of it that way. I guess you have to think about things like that.. a lot.” Steve couldn’t help remembering the times that Tony would refuse to take point when talking to the media, until the questions got hard and mean and he’d take over with a grin. They’d seen it as taking over the spotlight, taking over to do a spin where he’d be seen as the ‘good guy’, but… after spending the last month with Tony like this, he was questioning everything he’d thought of the man. With everything he was doing right now, the list he’d made up since they’d come back to the past and how quickly he was taking care of that list, nothing matched the selfish playboy that he thought Tony was.

That he was  _ led to believe _ he was. 

He was coming to believe Tony’s theory that HYDRA in SHIELD was leading them along the wrong path from the very beginning. 

* * *

Steve was startled to walk into the kitchen after his run and find Tony in the kitchen, apparently making breakfast. “Oh, hey Tony. You getting up, or going to sleep?” He made a point of keeping any sort of judgement off his face and in his voice; he knew that in the last timeline he’d been too quick to judge Tony’s sleeping schedule, but in the last month he’d really... come to realize just how much Tony did. 

Tony, at this point, was still the head of R&D for Stark Industries, a member of the SI board of governors, a superhero… He had enough on his plate that, honestly, Steve was getting to the point where he was just happy to see Tony get some rest at all. He was genuinely appalled that he hadn’t noticed this the first time, though he knew at this point in the other timeline he was distracted by jobs for SHIELD. 

“Getting up, had to schedule an earlier board meeting last minute to clear my afternoon. I was going to find you; I found proof for Nicky about HYDRA nesting inside SHIELD. I was going to send it his way this afternoon, but I’m worried about it being... seen by someone else that we don’t want. I was going to ask you to invite Nick to the tower.” He shot a smirk Steve’s way, “I’ve never wanted him in my tower before, if I were to invite him to come in now it would be... suspicious.”

Steve laughed and nodded, “Yeah, I could see that. What time did you want him to come here for?” He glanced at the clock; it was 8 a.m. now, but he wasn’t sure how long Tony’s board meeting would go for. “And what should I say to get him here?”

“I’ll be out probably close to 12:30, but I’ll probably be kept busy for another hour after that. Maybe aim for around two.” He paused with a sigh, “Maybe, say something about having found some information that SHIELD would be interested in, that’s too sensitive to speak about over the phone? It’s accurate, if nothing else.”

They shared a brief grin before Tony focused on plating his omelette, picking it and a fork up and sitting down at the counter as Steve grabbed a bottle of water and sat down across from him, feeling briefly like maybe they could... mend this break between the two of them. They could,  _ at least _ , be friends again after this.

* * *

Tony groaned, stretching in the elevator as it made its way to the conference room that Steve should be in with Fury. JARVIS had let him know just a couple of minutes ago that Fury was in the building, so he should be just arriving in the room now. 

He was both looking forward to this meeting and dreading it simultaneously. He always hated dealing with Fury, but being able to weed out HYDRA - and, if he was honest, being the one to prove HYDRA was there  _ right under Fury’s nose _ \- was definitely something to look forward to. He just wasn’t sure how Eyepatch was going to react to  _ him _ being the one to have found it. Thankfully, Steve should be able to give him a little more... legitimacy in Fury’s one good eye. 

Steve was definitely coming through for him now, and he could fully admit to being surprised by it. He’d expected more hostility, more holier-than-thou attitude. What he was getting was, instead, a lot more understanding. He had no idea what started the change, but he was grateful for it. 

Siberia may not have happened in this timeline -  _ wouldn’t _ happen in this timeline - but it was still on his mind, often. 

“Sir, if I may?” The elevator stopped, having reached its floor, but the doors didn’t open yet. “With the information you’ve given me regarding Sergeant Barnes, I believe I’ve found the HYDRA base he is currently located at. It’s the only facility I can find with the resources to house a chair as was described, given its obvious power requirements, and there are indications of the components necessary for cryogenic freezing having been delivered to the base in the past few months.”

“Good job, J.” He grinned wide at the camera in the elevator, “Let’s deal with Patchy, so he can take care of the infestation in SHIELD, and break out Cap’s boyfriend. Hell, I think after that we’ve taken care of... most of the list at this point.”

“So it seems, sir. On that note, our efforts of giving grants to schools in Tennessee to better build STEM programs seems to be going over well; Harley Keener has joined a new robotics club in his school.” Tony couldn’t help but laugh at that, not even remotely surprised to hear as much. 

Taking an earbud out of his pocket, Tony slipped it in his ear as the doors to the elevator opened finally, JARVIS continuing once the earbud was connected properly, “Additionally, Ben and May Parker have applied for the scholarship created for Midtown and I’ve already flagged him to receive a full scholarship. He will be attending next year.” 

Tony stepped into the room where Fury and Steve were with a small hum of acknowledgement to JARVIS, “Nicky! What a pleasure, seeing your smiling face!” He walked to the table in the conference room and sat down at the chair at the head of it, spinning on it once before settling in, elbows on the table and chin in his hands, grin dropping from his face for a more serious expression. He looked at Steve for a moment, who just nodded and sat down on his right. 

“JARVIS, show Nicky-boy what we found.”

* * *

It had taken a couple of hours with Fury, arguing about what to do with HYDRA - thankfully, he and Steve had already talked about it, and both of them agreed that they weren’t maids and Fury could clean his own damn house. But letting Fury think that he got his way on that was helpful. 

The fact that he was able to find proof that Maria, Clint and Natashalie were all clean of HYDRA influence helped, he was sure. Something he’d made a point of looking for so Nick would have the support he’d need from the three he leaned on most obviously. 

Following that, he and Steve went up to the penthouse discussing Hydra; Tony immediately told Steve that JARVIS might have narrowed down where Bucky would be. Thankfully, it seemed that time travel had cooled Steve’s head a little, so they were able to actually take the time and  _ plan things out _ . 

Within six weeks, they were in the middle of butt-fuck nowhere in  _ Kansas _ , no town to be found for miles, but a nice little ‘power plant’ that had all appearances of being abandoned. From everything they could see, and JARVIS could hack, the facility  _ was literally nearly abandoned _ . They got close enough to get JARVIS into their network and able to assess via the cameras, exactly how empty the building was. 

HYDRA, the Nazi group that survived after World War II through subterfuge and careful planning and security, had left  _ three guards and Bucky Barnes as the only ones in the building _ . 

Frankly, Tony was ashamed, at this point, that they’d actually been the giant threat that they were. Insulted, even, since apparently they felt so secure with him and  _ Captain America _ , their  _ first major threat _ , around and taking people out left, right and center. 

And from Steve’s snort, he was likely saying all of these thoughts aloud. 

“Okay, so, three guards and your buddy in cryo. The guards are apparently just regular grunts, so they won’t be a problem; hell, they’re scattered across the building, and with its size… We could probably get in and out without them knowing, so long as your bff isn’t a problem when we wake him from his nap.”

“Probably for the best. If they think this place is secure, they probably don’t even look in on him all that often. We could get him and get out, and they might not even realize he’s missing until they go to use him next.”

“Alright, that’s a plan then. JARVIS, are there any actual security issues we need to watch for?”

“No, sir. Simply doors that require key cards to get through; I can get them for you now that I’m in their systems.” There was a brief pause before the AI spoke again, “I’m also mining all of the data I can find, and will prepare a packet for delivery to Fury when you next see him. There’s also... ‘maintenance’ files for the Winter Soldier. I’m taking them as well and leaving behind the same virus you left on the SHIELD helicarrier to continue digging if and when any new computer or device is connected to the network here.”

Tony smirked at Steve, who was smiling a little and motioned for him to go first through the door as his armor mostly retracted. If they were going stealth, he’d be better off without the armored boots thunking on the ground. 

They stepped into the building quietly, Tony only wearing partial armor, primarily equipped with his repulsors, along with some chest protection. They each had an earbud connecting them to JARVIS and, with Tony following Steve’s lead, they quickly made their way through the building without the guards noticing. 

Down into the basement - of course - and into the center of the building, it seemed like a matter of minutes before they were in front of the cryogenic chamber housing the Winter Soldier. 

“I can open it remotely; from all indications in the files I have now obtained, he is often compliant and docile when he first emerges from the chamber. As long as you move him quickly, there should be no issues getting out of the building with him.” Tony looked at Steve letting him make the call when he was ready to have his friend back. 

Steve stared at him for a long moment; Tony couldn’t quite read the look on his face, but it was... intense. He could almost feel a shiver up his spine before Steve spoke to JARVIS, his voice hoarse with emotion, “Yeah, open it up.”

Once the first hiss of the chamber depressurizing was heard, Steve broke eye contact and walked forward quickly to catch Bucky as he slumped forward, eyes fluttering open briefly. He looked around, looking somehow both blank and confused at the same time. 

It took only a moment before he was shakily standing on his own, “Ready to comply.”

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, there will be more. I just need to keep kicking myself in the butt to continue to write it. 
> 
> I have the attention span of a 5 year old high on pixie sticks. Help!
> 
> (okay but for real somebody please kick me in the butt so I actually continue writing this. please. i'm begging you lol)


End file.
